So at the DNC we had some outing of some bad juju regarding how the nasty dirty process of finding a presidential candidate happens. Sorta of like “I want to eat sausage but I don’t want to know how it was/is made” thing. Same thing with this. We the people just don’t want to know how the parties elect who is going to run for president. We just don’t. Because it gives lie to the whole democratic process. Because, well, it’s not democratic and it’s very very dirty.

This was first noted in the Trump run up to nomination and even afterwards, with folks still sputtering because they couldn’t beat him and turned to the normal insider dirty tricks and got called out.

Now we see a similar pattern at the DNC. Again, no surprise and actually no dirt. At least not anymore than it already is. Speaks for itself as they say.

But here’s what chaffs my ass, that a supporter of former DNC chairperson Debbie Wasserman Schultz said. Read this quote and think when was the last time a leader stood up and said, wasn’t me it was my people. Ok but then who is responsible for those people? Do they walk in off the street and just do things? Do the reflect the mood and tone of their boss, are they rogues? Even if they are, they are still the responsibility of the chief. It’s always been that way. Roosevelt had a sign that said “The buck stops here” meaning he was ultimately responsible. But apparently in political land the leader isn’t responsible for the bad things, only the good things that their people do. So here now the quote…

“This is just a bump in the road. I think she was completely impartial in this process. Now, some of the people who worked for her sent out some completely inappropriate e-mails, and for that, they should be punished, not Debbie Wasserman Schultz.”, said Steve Effman, the former mayor of Sunrise and a longtime friend of DWS. (this taken from here: www.esquire.com Debbie Wasserman Schultz)

So I get it: the message we send to our kids is: it’s ok that when you are in charge of a team that your people do things that are wrong, and don’t worry you aren’t responsible. Really? In the past, people who were leaders stood up for their people and lived and died by the teams actions, they didn’t cut someone loose and distance themselves… So now we are teaching that you can hire folks and lead them but if they do something wrong it’s all on them. Not on the leader for controlling things, for setting the tone and direction of folks, for weeding out the bad ones and keeping those who are on the same page… If you believe that, I have some swamp err good land in Florida to sell you, and a great bridge in NY…

So wake up here, get with it. Leaders have to stand for something, and have to be responsible for things good or bad. The faster this country learns that not everyone is perfect and that mistakes happen the better, but even better will be when folks learn that to lead is just that, to be out front taking the shots, being in the arena, and standing for something other than, OOHHH I didn’t say that, don’t punish me, but punish the person I hired directed and lead…. yeah.. That doesn’t work in my world.

You lead, you take the responsibility, good or bad. Stand there and deliver my friends. Enter that arena, but do so with the knowledge that YOU and only you are responsible.

So reading on the internet suggests two things. One that Testosterone leads to aggression or does not lead to aggression. Science is such an exact umm well err science… So let’s take a look at how this comes about.

First study done was done on women and lead to the conclusion that it increased aggression in men. Not sure I follow. But let’s see where this leads us. Down the path of assumption and myth.

In this paper: Elsevier. “Testosterone in healthy men increases their brains’ response to threat.”

ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 11 August 2014. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/08/140811124630.htm>. right in the first paragraph the author states. “Testosterone, a steroid hormone, is well known to contribute to aggressive behavior in males, but the neural circuits through which testosterone exerts these effects have not been clear.” So without any citation at all, the author here states that it contributes to aggressive behavior.

Now same website… Different author.

University of Zurich. “Testosterone does not induce aggression, study shows.” ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 9 December 2009. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/12/091208132241.htm>.

Here the issue.

When you actually read the whole first paper, it doesn’t say the observed aggressive behavior in the subjects, just that their brains reacted faster. Faster to what you might as, faster to an aggressive looking face. The second paper states that testosterone seems to help the brain function better in social situations. Enhancing it’s ability to assess the situation faster and better. That there is no evolutionary pressure to attack first and ask questions later, that actually the ability to work things out quicker is the win.

So what can we believe here? I don’t know anything for a fact. But I do know that the first author brought their own preconceived ideas and prejudice to the table when writing their paper. No where does the experiment that they were running prove aggression, just that your brain reacts faster to social situations and gets on alert faster when testosterone is present. Big leap to make in a conclusion based on the facts of the paper, that don’t support that conclusion.

Here’s something that is more in line with the results from that paper. For your reading pleasure..

All jokes aside, for those of you who had the pleasure of spending the night with Sandy, it is nice to wake up and have lower wind speeds and nearly no rain.

I would like to do a shoutout to Holiday Inn Express for doing the stand up thing of actually lowering prices during this event. This allowed those emergency personnel who had to be away from home to help out and lower cost place to bunk down. Grats and that’s class.

Now onto the NOT so class acts. I had reports that Wallmart had actually increased prices ahead of the storm especially on items that are potentially critical to a families well being and potential ability to survive if things had really gone down hill. If anyone else has reports of businesses local to you gouging everyone, drop a note here and I will see about updating this.

Glad that everyone I know has gotten through to the other side of this alive and unscathed.

Congrats to all of Facebook (www.facebook.com), you people did a bang up job of changing the world. Thanks.

Personally I am disappointed that I didn’t take that call from Sean Parker when he called me a week before Peter Thiel put his 500K to work. Not that I could have (at that time matched that), but I certainly would have put 25-50K to work there given Sean’s track record.

So I LOVE that Starbucks and Apple gives out iTunes codes for free each week. Love it. Though I messed up in the beginning because I didn’t realize that they had expiration dates, so I was collecting and tossing up on my dresser. Opps.

You might ask WHY I was doing that.

Well, because it’s too freaking hard to type in a code when what they should have done is put a QR code there for us to use along with the option to do a scan from WITHIN iTunes on the iPhone. While they are at it why don’t they put a bar-code scanner in that app so that when I am at a store and see some music I want I could just scan it and buy it online..? Why oh WHY!!!

Come on Apple use the technology that you create to make our lives easier. 🙂

Ok, seriously this would be an awesome addition to the iTunes app on the iPhone. What do you say Apple? Wanna help us be even more addicted to your services and products?

Ok so due to Godaddy not being able to keep backups longer than 30 days. Can’t totally blame them, but… All of my rants are gone down the bit bucket. I will see if there are copies laying around. Meantime I get to start over. So bear with me while I get things rolling again.

So what happens when a big media company decides to buy into the Internet? They start suing everyone they can in order to stop them from growing their business. It’s interesting to note that if YouTube was owned by Viacom that there would be no lawsuit and that Viacom would be quite happy letting their users put up “copyrighted” material.

Anyway, this was interesting and wanted to share it. More later if I get motivated to rant a bit. So this is just a rantling.